Day 6: Maine // Boston

Sadly, today was our last day in Maine. Happily, we started our day with a visit the the #2-ranked bakery in America, The Standard Baking Company in Portland. The bakery was a short walk down the street from our hotel, so Dad and I walked down and bought a box of pastries and brought them back to our hotel’s lobby to eat. We intended to only get a small breakfast, but Dad and I are dangerous in a bakery, so we ended up with a significant haul. It was all outstanding, and we thoroughly enjoyed making ourselves sick trying to eat it. If you’re ever near Portland, I’d highly recommend visiting.

After breakfast, we drove back up I-295 to Freeport, Maine to do a little shopping. We went in the L.L. Bean Factory stores, Patagonia, The North Face, Clarks, and a few other outlets that caught our attention. We soon left, however, because it was such a tourist trap, and we were trapped tourists.

We backtracked back down I-295 to just south of Portland and headed over to Kettle Cove at Crescent Beach State Park to enjoy a view of the ocean.

We hopped back on the Interstate and drove south to Ogunquit, which is just south of Kennebunkport. We drove out on a peninsula to an acclaimed tiny seafood shack called Perkins Cove Lobster Shack. It was delicious and a great value; we ended up splitting their specials for the day: two lobsters with corn, a lobster roll with chips, slaw, and clam-haddock chowder.

Perkin's Cove Lobster Shack

Perkin's Cove Harbor

We finished our meal and traveled down Highway 1 towards York, Maine, to go to the Nubble Light at the Cade Neddick Lighthouse. The lighthouse is situated on an island a short distance from the coast, so you can’t actually approach it, but you can enjoy a pleasant view of the ocean and the light from the shore.

We walked to a nearby restaurant on the point called Fox’s Lobster House to get dessert-blueberry pie with ice cream. Mom and Dad thought it was delicious, but I wasn’t 100% impressed. It was still a nice refreshing dessert for the afternoon.

We got back on the dreaded Interstate 95 and traveled south through Portsmouth, NH to Boston. We drove through the tunnel under the Back Bay to East Boston and stopped at the famous Santarpio’s Pizza, a cash-only, family run joint. We split a pizza (they only had one size) with homemade Italian sausage. The restaurant didn’t look like much from the outside, but it certainly had outstanding pizza. The service was friendly too, and it was good to have an authentic Italian restaurant experience.

Now mostly full after our busy day, we decided to get another small round of dessert at an ice cream shop called Toscanini’s in Cambridge near MIT. We got two flavors each, including: almond joy, strawberry, gingersnap molasses, and their signature B3 (brown sugar, browned butter, and brownie). The ice cream was great (and probably not the greatest decision on a full stomach, but hey, it’s vacation), and we left full and satisfied, and drove through Harvard’s campus to our hotel near Alewife Station.